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Abstract
Foodborne illnesses impact humans around the world every day. Many foodborne pathogenic bacteria challenge global human health, and many of these important human foodborne illnesses are associated with consumption of animal derived foods. Many food-producing animals exhibit few if any signs of infection with foodborne pathogenic bacteria, requiring all animals to be treated with pathogen reduction strategies rather than simply targeting colonized animals. Because each food animal species is produced in quite different scenarios as well as under widely variable environmental conditions, and each food animal species can be colonized by several different foodborne pathogenic bacterial species, it is not feasible to implement a “one-size-fits-all” approach to improving food safety on the farm. Therefore, it is imperative to utilize a holistic (both direct and indirect) approach to improve food safety which can be applied to several phases of animal-derived food production. A variety of interventions have been used to reduce pathogen populations in the live animal, such as prebiotics, probiotics, and antimicrobials, along with other approaches to reducing pathogen burden on poultry carcasses and products. One common denominator supporting many pathogen reduction strategies is that they all can alter the microbial composition of feed, the gastrointestinal tract, or food products. Initially, we evaluated the efficacy of a wash cabinet spraying hypochlorous acid (antimicrobial) or sodium hydroxide to directly remove bacteria from broiler carcasses. In the second experiment, we evaluated the impact of spraying hypochlorous acid on chicken wings prior to blast-freezing on colonization by an artificial Listeria innocua inoculation. In the third experiment, we evaluated the combined effect of irrigating growing triticale with dairy lagoon wastewater prior to harvest and coupled with a bacterial commercial inoculant at harvest on the chemical composition, fermentation profile, and bacterial community of silage. Lastly, the hindgut microbiota of steers fed feedlot finishing rations supplemented with a calcium gluconate product were evaluated for changes caused by the prebiotic treatment. Bacterial populations filling critical roles in gut homeostasis and health, and the formation of beneficial end-products in the hindgut microbiota were affected due to supplementing the ration of steers with calcium gluconate.